Jamie Lee Curtis, actress and author, comes to Houston Sat., Sept. 8.

Jamie Lee Curtis in Houston
Curtis will read and discuss her new picture book, “My Brave Year of Firsts,” at 1 p.m. Saturday at Meadow Wood Elementary School, 14230 Memorial. Doors open at noon. To have a book signed, it must be purchased from Blue Willow Bookshop, which will provide tickets for the signing line. Call 281-497-8675 or go to bluewillowbookshop.com.

Jamie Lee Curtis

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She posed in her underwear — no makeup, no fancy lighting — for a national magazine at age 43.

She signed on as a pitchwoman for Activia, a yogurt that pledges to relieve irregularity.

The down-to-earth actress and author visits Houston on Saturday to promote her 10th book, “My Brave Year of Firsts.” It follows a first-grader whose inquisitive spirit and rough-around-the-edges appeal channels the likes of Pippi Longstocking and Ramona the Pest.

Curtis has written 10 children’s books in 20 years, all illustrated by Laura Cornell, and she never frets about finding fresh material. The seed for the latest title came from a friend in Sun Valley, Idaho, who told her about his daughter’s amazing summer of firsts.

“I started thinking about how often we ask children to try things, and it brought up to me the bravery of being a kid,” Curtis says. “For a child, jumping a rope, riding a horse, tying shoes, going to school — all are new activities. But adults don’t naturally choose to do something brave. We’re afraid we’re going to look foolish.”

But Curtis was brave when she posed in her underwear for More magazine, even she admits that. Revealing her tummy flab and imperfect thighs to the world was a kind of coming out party for her, a public launch of her personal crusade to keep it real.

She did it, she says, to support one of her earlier kids’ books, “I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem.”

“I just felt it was irresponsible to not talk about my own self-esteem issues,” Curtis says. “It was completely my idea. I told them, I’ll do a picture where I am totally un-done by any outside source. Schlubby underwear. No hair and make-up. I said, I’ll show that if you show how long it takes and how much it costs to get me to look like me in magazine pictures.”

The images hit a nerve.

“I knew it would make an impact on a certain group of women,” Curtis says. “But what it became was much bigger than that. For one moment in my life, I represented truth in advertising, courage and solidarity with other women.”

It’s a compelling story line: authenticity from a woman who earns some of her living pretending to be other people.

The child of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis made her own way in the movies, debuting in 1978’s “Halloween” and going on to make cult favorites, including “Trading Places” (1983) and “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988). She won two Golden Globes: for “True Lies” (1994) and the television series, “Anything But Love” (1989-92). Most recently, she appeared on CBS drama “NCIS.”

But over the past two decades on film, Curtis has found an on-screen niche playing moms, in films such as “Freaky Friday” (2003) and “You Again” (2010).

“Girls go to the gym in make-up,” Curtis says, a tinge of incredulity in her voice. “That didn’t exist for me. Did I know I was putting on a supertight dress when I was 20-something? Sure. But now there’s a red carpet every day. I did a photo session once a year. It was a bit of a game but it was never part of my thing. I loathe trying on clothes. I loathe the idea of a stylist.”

Curtis has been married to actor/director/musician Christopher Guest — of “Spinal Tap,” “Best in Show” and “Waiting for Guffman” fame — for 27 years. When asked if she would ever appear in any of his films she said, “No. Thank you,” in such a way that it was clear she didn’t wish to elaborate.

The couple have two grown children, Annie and Thomas. Curtis’ first children’s book came about “by accident,” she says, because of Annie.

“I never thought I’d write,” Curtis says. “I barely got out of high school. This wasn’t on my to-do list.”

But at age 4, Annie marched into her office and announced: “When I was little I used a diaper but now I use a potty.”

As Curtis recalls: “She made a declaratory statement and then stomped out of the room the way small people do. I remember being amazed at her ownership of who and what she was, and that even at 4, she could look back on her past.”

That conversation became Curtis’ first book, “When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth.”

Curtis hasn’t written her own memoir, but she does live parts of her life out loud.

Sober for more than a decade, she has been outspoken about her alcoholism. She has also spoken publicly about her adventures in Botox, lipo and plastic surgery.

It took years of bad fashion choices, she jokes, to get comfortable in her own skin.

That’s where the gray hair comes in.

“I just felt it was fraudulent,” Curtis says, “sitting in that chair in the salon, wearing that cape, having someone paint chemistry on my head to change what my nature is.”